.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
The present work illustrates the lush surroundings of Bonnard’s villa, purchased by the artist in 1912, which he later dubbed Ma Roulotte, or “My Caravan.” A stilted house perched on the banks of the Seine in Vernon, Bonnard’s summer abode offered a pleasant contrast from his winter environment when the artist and his wife would travel to Saint-Tropez, Antibes, Cannes, and eventually, Le Cannet. Nicholas Watkins has written, "He needed, as he said, the lush pastures and passing clouds of the north as a fitting complement to the heat and timelessness of the south, in the same way that an intense red engenders a green after-image" (Bonnard, London, 1994, p. 127).
In Vernon, Bonnard not only derived inspiration from his vibrant and sensory habitat, but also found himself located only several kilometers from Claude Monet and his legendary gardens at Giverny. This proximity led to the formation of a close friendship between the artists that lasted until Monet’s death in 1926. Despite their affinity, the artists found themselves opposed on several issues, including the maintenance of gardens; while Monet found inspiration in his meticulously-kept Nymphéas pond and iris beds, Bonnard preferred his jardin sauvage, as depicted in the present work. The brash, gestural brushstrokes create a rich surface that illustrates Bonnard’s disregard towards careful trimming in their aesthetic embodiment of the colors and shapes of the lush flora surrounding his habitat. And while Bonnard’s art was born out of Impressionism, he did not paint en plein-air like his predecessors, preferring instead to paint from memory. The artist described this process: “It’s not a matter of painting life. It’s a matter of giving life to painting” (quoted in ibid.).
The present work, dated circa 1927, belongs to an important group of small-scale landscapes the artist began in 1926. For this group, Bonnard preferred to work on unstretched canvases tacked onto the wall of his villa. As he explained, “working within a set of imposed dimensions seems to me intolerable, as the composition is more or less always cropped or modified by material measurements of the support... In every landscape there is the need for a certain quantity of sky and land, water and greenery, a dosage of elements that one cannot always establish at the start…” (quoted in A. Terrasse, Pierre Bonnard, Paris, 1967, p. 127).
A contemporaneous, similar work was purchased in 1927 by Duncan Phillips for the Phillips Collection, which holds the largest and most important group of Bonnard’s works in the United States.
In Vernon, Bonnard not only derived inspiration from his vibrant and sensory habitat, but also found himself located only several kilometers from Claude Monet and his legendary gardens at Giverny. This proximity led to the formation of a close friendship between the artists that lasted until Monet’s death in 1926. Despite their affinity, the artists found themselves opposed on several issues, including the maintenance of gardens; while Monet found inspiration in his meticulously-kept Nymphéas pond and iris beds, Bonnard preferred his jardin sauvage, as depicted in the present work. The brash, gestural brushstrokes create a rich surface that illustrates Bonnard’s disregard towards careful trimming in their aesthetic embodiment of the colors and shapes of the lush flora surrounding his habitat. And while Bonnard’s art was born out of Impressionism, he did not paint en plein-air like his predecessors, preferring instead to paint from memory. The artist described this process: “It’s not a matter of painting life. It’s a matter of giving life to painting” (quoted in ibid.).
The present work, dated circa 1927, belongs to an important group of small-scale landscapes the artist began in 1926. For this group, Bonnard preferred to work on unstretched canvases tacked onto the wall of his villa. As he explained, “working within a set of imposed dimensions seems to me intolerable, as the composition is more or less always cropped or modified by material measurements of the support... In every landscape there is the need for a certain quantity of sky and land, water and greenery, a dosage of elements that one cannot always establish at the start…” (quoted in A. Terrasse, Pierre Bonnard, Paris, 1967, p. 127).
A contemporaneous, similar work was purchased in 1927 by Duncan Phillips for the Phillips Collection, which holds the largest and most important group of Bonnard’s works in the United States.